Pak terms dialogue as "barren rounds"

ISLAMABAD, Nov 14 (PTI) — Pakistan has described the just concluded Indo-Pakistan composite dialogue on six identified issues as "barren rounds" and blamed India for its failure due to its "intransigence and lack of sincerity".

"The Indian side was not prepared to make any progress towards the settlement of these disputes", Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman and Additional Secretary Tariq Altaf, who returned along with the rest of the Pakistani delegation from New Delhi last evening, told mediapersons at the Lahore airport.

"Altaf also termed as "baseless and unsubstantiated" the Indian charge that Pakistan was promoting terrorist activities in Kashmir and accused New Delhi of sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan and going back on most of the agreements on different issues.

"The Indians repeated their baseless and unsubstantiated allegations during the talks on terrorism and drug trafficking", Mr Altaf said. Pakistan not only rejected these charges but also produced "detailed evidence of Indian-sponsored terrorist activities".

"The Pakistan side also handed over a list of terrorist training camps in India and incidents of bomb blasts and killings in Pakistan which apprehended Indian agents had confessed to having committed", he said.

"The Pakistani delegations emphasised that without resolution of the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir, environment could not be conducive for promotion of economic cooperation and people-to-people contact", the spokesman stressed.

Mr Altaf also said that extremist elements within India were again out to wreck the process of peace and rapprochement in South Asia.

He noted that the statement made by Mr Advani was contrary to the understanding reached between the two Prime Ministers during their recent meeting in New York. "The communal views of Mr Advani were well known. The Indian Home Minister has always sought to externalise Indian domestic problems. It was Mr Advani who after the Indian nuclear tests had threatened Pakistan with nuclear blackmail on Kashmir".